


The Fire in her Soul

by Strump



Series: Fraywood Brotp [6]
Category: Shadowhunters (TV)
Genre: Clary Fray & Alec Lightwood Friendship, Self Harm, hurt!clary
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-12
Updated: 2020-04-12
Packaged: 2021-03-02 05:06:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,899
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23609614
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Strump/pseuds/Strump
Summary: Takes place while Jace is with Valentine.Alec catches glimpses of Clary during Jace's time away and realizes that they're not so different after all.Mentions of self harm
Relationships: Clary Fray & Alec Lightwood
Series: Fraywood Brotp [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1119159
Comments: 4
Kudos: 98





	The Fire in her Soul

He’s heading to bed when he hears the unmistakable grunts of a late-night workout. Whereas Jace is usually the culprit, Alec winces, because Jace is gone, which leaves only one person. He rounds the corner and is less than surprised to see Clary, red hair pulled back into a tight braid, sweat beading and rolling down her face, and hands glaringly bright with blood. He almost scoffs, rolling his eyes, and steps up to the training room floor.

“You should wrap your hands.” He calls, crossing his arms. Clary whirls and he’s startled to see the snarl on her face, something dark flickering in her eyes that sets him on edge. His shoulders tense, jaw grinding.

“Show me where I asked for your advice, Lightwood.” She hisses venomously, all the unfiltered rage of a demon curling through his ears like a fork against expensive china. He curls his lip at her.

“Suit yourself, Morgenstern.” He snaps in response, the use of her father’s last name meant to feel like a blade in her chest, before spinning tersely on his heel and marching from the room to the soundtrack of Clary’s grunts. Alec doesn’t sleep that night, and Clary is still in the training room when he emerges into the ops center at 8am.

Isabelle notices the tension between her brother and Clary, eyes flickering between the two of them when she knows they aren’t paying attention. They’ve perfected an avoidance act, a graceful dance in which the two of them are always skirting each other, always teetering on the precipice of something dangerous that’s bound to blow up in their faces and leave an aftermath that not even Isabelle can fix. She quickly becomes tired of it.

“This is never going to work like this.” She finally says one day, standing between the two of them and ignoring the furious looks they’re sending each other over her shoulder. Jace has been gone for three days. “It won’t be any use even if we do find him. You two look like you haven’t slept in days. I’m calling it for today.” She shakes her head and minimizes the map. “Go.” She turns before either of them can deny it and walks away.

“No training today?” Alec calls scathingly after Clary as she turns mechanically. She doesn’t respond, only pokes her middle finger into the air without looking back and disappears in the direction of the library.

Alec makes himself a sandwich for dinner and makes his way back towards his room, eating the food but not tasting it, when he hears piano music drifting from the library. He halts his path, feet automatically taking him to the door. Clary is sitting at the piano, sniffling softly while she plucks out a stuttered version of Mary Had a Little Lamb on the keys. Alec leans against the doorjamb, frowning while finishing the last bite of his sandwich. A memory swirls to the forefront of his brain, Jace’s artistic fingers tracing easily over the keys, producing a beautiful song that Alec could never remember the name of. He clenches his jaw and shakes it away.

“Fuck.” Clary mutters softly to herself, reaching up to scrub at her eyes and gives a sharp, brittle laugh. “Fuck.” She repeats, carefully closing the lid over the keys and moving to stand. Alec takes his leave, returning to his own room and settling into his bed with an Alicante history book opened to a page he’s read thousands of times before. The familiar words start to blur after about an hour, and he lulls himself to sleep with familiar words and his own notes written in the margins.

He awakens only a few hours later with Jace’s name stuck in his throat and tears burning his eyes. He shucks the tangled covers off of his legs and stumbles out of the bed, rubbing at bleary eyes and making his nightly trek to the kitchens for some tea. On his way, he passes the training room. Clary is at it again, wailing on the punching bag with blood rolling down her arms, dripping to the floor, and a decisive set to her jaw. Alec pauses his progress to the kitchen as Clary’s hits slow until she’s standing in front of the bag, panting heavily, arms dangling limply at her side.

“It’ll never be enough, Jace.” She whispers, leaning heavily against the bag, forehead pressed to the cool material. Alec swallows. “I’m sorry. Please don’t leave me like this.” The raven-haired shadowhunter, feeling like he’s just intruded on a very personal moment, scurries away to make his tea.

Alec knows what it feels like to be abandoned. He considers this as he sits in the kitchen, leaning against the counter and staring into his tea absently. He thinks maybe, he finally understands Clary. Can finally put himself in her shoes. He has to admit to himself that he’s been selfish. Her entire life has been ripped away from her, everything she thought she knew actually falsities. All Alec has been able to think about is how her presence has affected him. Something in his mind unlocks, an empathetic part of his brain that had been shoved away, and his face twists into a frown.

“Hey, Alec.” He jumps as Clary steps into the kitchen, ruffling her hair that she’s taken out of her ponytail. She looks exhausted.

“Tea?” He blurts. Clary gives him what can barely be classified as a smile.

“That would be nice.” She replies, licking her lips as he makes a cup of tea for her from the still-hot kettle. “Thanks.” She takes the tea and perches herself on the counter across from him, legs swinging softly against the cabinets below. The two share their tea in a terse silence, not looking at each other. Clary takes a deep breath at some point and puts her mug down. The accompanying clatter sounds too loud in the silence. “Can we talk?” She asks, glancing up at him.

But Alec has reached his limit of ‘talk’ for the day. Izzy had cornered him earlier and had forced him to talk to her about everything going on for the better part of two hours. So, he shakes his head, putting his empty mug in the kitchen sink.

“No, not tonight. Sorry.” He offers, doesn’t see the injured look flashing across her face as he exits the kitchens and makes a beeline for his room.

It becomes a routine for them. Clary joins him for a cup of tea in the kitchen when she’s finished with her training. Sometimes, he goes later or earlier, depending on when he wakes up. On those occasional nights, Clary sits by herself in the kitchen and listens for his soft footsteps almost hopefully. She never asks to talk again, and Alec never offers. They sit in silence that grows less tense each night, and when they finish their tea, go to bed with few, if any, words shared.

It isn’t until Jace is back that they actually speak. Things are strange between Clary and Jace, and Alec can see that they’ve been avoiding each other. He goes to the kitchen each night at 2am, hoping to see her, but she never shows up. He doesn’t know why he’s so desperate for it, when it had only seemed like a burden before. But he does it every night for two weeks.

He decides this is his last night. He pushes himself off of the kitchen counter and goes to dump his tea into the sink when the door opens. He looks up and offers Clary a half smile, ignoring the dried blood on her knuckles and shirt. She doesn’t smile back, only silently accepts the mug of tea and perches herself on the counter in her usual spot. Alec takes a deep breath to steel himself.

“When I was thirteen, Izzy got hit while we were in the field together. A shax demon.” He speaks, his voice startling Clary out of the mindless stare she’s got. “She was in the infirmary for three days. I beat myself up about it for months, trained harder than either of my siblings.” He swallows through the discomfort of the atmosphere and soldiers on. “And when I had my next mission, I was too exhausted to be effective. All three of us ended up in the infirmary that time.” He glanced up from his tea to see her staring at him, eyes wide, like a startled animal. “They benched me, told me to get it together before they’d send me on another mission. Jace and Izzy went on four or five without me, and always came back fine.” He takes a sip of his tea. “Nobody ever asked, so I never said anything, but…” He pauses and sets his tea down, pushing himself off the counter he’s leaning on and approaches Clary. She watches silently, lips parted in surprise, as he softly takes the mug from her hands to place on the counter and takes her slender, artistic fingers in his own, observing them closely. “Clary, this kind of training doesn’t come from a place of dedication.” He glides a thumb over the rips in her knuckles and she winces. “And what you’re doing is not okay.” He looks up, startled to see her face crumple as tears well in her eyes and spill over the edge. “Why are you hurting yourself like this?” He places her hands back in her lap and produces his Stele, tracing over her Iratze and watching the skin knit back together. “Iratzes heal outside wounds and superficial cuts, but they can’t do anything for the inside.” He turns, making his way to the sink where he wets a paper towel and returns to her. Her shoulders are shaking and soft, choked sobs are erupting from her mouth as he gently scrubs the blood from between her fingers. “I know, better than anybody, the kinds of things that you’re feeling right now.” He turns her hand over, the paper towel growing pink under his soft ministrations. “None of it was your fault. None of it.” He says this firmly, looking up into her eyes to get his point across. “Not your father, not your mother, not Jace. None of it.” He wants to make sure that she understands, so he squeezes her hands tightly.

She crumbles under his gaze. The girl slithers from the counter and Alec catches her, tugging her close to him and tucking her head under his chin. She allows him to cage her, to crush her softly to his chest, and he ignores her hair tickling his nose.

“I’m sorry.” Alec whispers into her fiery hair as she clutches at him, arms wound tightly around his torso. “I’m sorry that all of this has happened to you. I’m sorry that you were struggling, and nobody saw it. I see it, Clary. I see you. And I’m here.”

Their relationship isn’t magically sunshine and daisies. They still fight, Clary still gets under his skin. He still rolls his eyes and snarks at her when she doesn’t listen to him, and she still snaps back with a fire that he’s missed. But sometimes, they share tea in the middle of the night. And Clary starts wrapping her hands every time she trains, Alec’s words always in the back of her mind.


End file.
